STAR-BULLETIN / 2003
Days after these Pali Highway rumble strips were installed, the state cut them down to reduce jarring. Further complaints will now force the strips' removal.
State finally gives up
on Pali rumble stripsConsistent complaints doom
the endeavor to slow down traffic
Months after spending $6,000 to reduce the size of rumble strips in Kailua-bound lanes of Pali Highway, the state said yesterday it will remove the strips altogether in response to complaints from motorists and Nuuanu residents.
The strips cost about $3,600 to install, and the state is expected to spend about the same to remove them from both sides of the highway, said state Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa.
Days after installing the strips in May, state officials announced they would cut the white half-inch-high strips on the Kailua-bound lanes down by a quarter-inch, after motorists complained of the strips' jarring effect.
The strips on both town- and Kailua-bound lanes were part of a $397,925 project aimed at slowing drivers as they entered the residential area of Nuuanu on Pali Highway, where the often-ignored speed limit is 35 mph.
Other safety measures under the project included repainting crosswalks and installing electronic speed indicators and fluorescent pedestrian warning signs.
A work order was issued yesterday to take out the strips, a day after the Nuuanu/Punchbowl Neighborhood board recommended that the speed reducers be removed, Ishikawa said.
He said strips in the Kailua-bound lanes will be taken out because of the noise they create for nearby residents. Strips in the town-bound lanes, which were always a quarter-inch high, will be removed because some motorists were driving over the center line to avoid them.
Pat Hironaga, a 38-year resident of Alakimo Drive just off Pali Highway, was one of about six Nuuanu residents who has been petitioning the board and the Transportation Department to take out the strips since the devices were installed.
Hironaga said he could hear motorists driving over the strips all hours of the day and night. "It was too loud," he said.
Board member Philip Nerney is also in favor of removing the strips, saying that Pali Highway is a main thoroughfare and "safety efforts should accommodate that fact."
Chairman Joe Magaldi said the board has recommended that the state consider reducing the speed limit in the area to 30 mph and adding more speed display signs.
"We don't want to give up on safety, because we know safety is a problem," he said.
There have been 11 fatalities on the Pali since 1996. Officials say eight of those deaths were on the Nuuanu side of the highway.
Other motorists and residents agreed that the strips -- installed on the Kailua-bound lanes just before Wyllie Road and the town-bound lanes before Waokanaka Street -- are unnecessary.
"It was dangerous. You didn't expect it," said Kaneohe resident Kathy Kam. "It's outrageous that they would do something like this without asking the community. I'm relieved that they're taking them out."
